Dieting vs Nutritional Cleansing

I wanted to quickly show you the comparison between dieting and nutritional cleansing.

Lets talk about "dieting" first.

Most diet methods are based around restricting calories. You're basically allowed to eat what you want. Provided you stick to a certain amount of calories per day then you're fine.

Well lets take a look at what happens to your body when you start restricting calories:

When you restrict calories you basically put your body under stress by limiting nutrients so even though you've lost weight and burnt fat, what you now have is a body with  a messed up hormonal response and a nutrient depleted body that is craving real nutrition which will lead to over eating and yes, you guessed it, more weight gain.

The Rebound!

The Rebound basically means, after the diet you put the weight back on and in most cases more.

Here's how it works:

Restricting calories to lose weight over the long term can severely alter your metabolism:

Here's some research that I stole from world strength coach expert Charles Poliquin's website:

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that after putting overweight individuals on a ten-week calorie-restricted diet of 550 calories a day, they experienced elevated levels of the hormones ghrelin, which stimulates hunger, and gastric inhibitory polypeptide, which promotes fat storage. Leptin, a hormone that suppresses hunger and boosts fat burning, was profoundly reduced after the ten-week diet and stayed that way for the duration of the one-year study.

Take note that after the ten-week diet, participants lost 30 pounds, but due to the way they had severely altered their metabolic hormone responses to food by restricting calories, they regained an average of 15 pounds in the next year.

Ok so now that we know what effect dieting can have on the body long term, lets look at "nutritional cleansing":

When you focus on nutritional cleansing, the goal is to restore liver health by removing ALL toxic food and anything that will stress the liver out.

The Solution to Pollution is Dilution

When your liver becomes overwhelmed with chemicals and toxins coming in, then it will dump them into your fat cells to be stored away out of harms way. Your body doesn't want these toxins circulating around in your blood as it deems them as harmful (poisenous) so will quickly send them straight to the fat cells to be dilluted down.

So the MORE polluted your body is, your body is more likely to hold onto water. If you're VERY polluted then you will be fatter and unhealthier.

Nutritional cleansing doesn't focus on calorie counting or point scoring, the emphasis is just to go back to basics with our diet and eat the way Mother Nature intended us to by eating REAL food that hasn't been tampered with.

When you focus on nutritional cleansing you are giving the body the nutrients  it needs to be successful.

There is no 'rebound effect' as you are giving the body the right nutrients which means in the long term you will have better overall health, less fat and more muscle.

So....dieting vs nutritional cleansing.

Which one will you be doing?

Sam ;-)

7 Tips To Avoid The Festive Flab Monster!

(written with ones tongue firmly in ones cheek!) 

 

So Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat or is it just YOU that will be getting fat?

 

Christmas is usually a time when people traditionally fall off the diet wagon. The average person puts on over 7lbs of fat during the xmas party season and when December turns to January, the consequences of the food we ate over xmas usually means that we get paid a visit from the 'festive flab monster.'

 

 

The festive flab monster is a nasty piece of work. He will undo all your hard work over the year in a matter of days.

 

The festive flab monster had an unhappy childhood and actually LIKES it when you don't succeed. He likes it when you self-sabotage all your hard work.

 

He likes to spoil your results.

 

He will leave you feeling fat, tired and unhealthy.

 

He will make your clothes tighter, your stomach bloated and unhappy inside that you over indulged too much.

 

Seeing these changes in you makes the festive flab monster happy. He doesn't want to see you happy you see, and he doesn't like it when you're full of energy and in the best shape of your life.

 

To be honest, he's a bit sick in the head and he will do all that he can do to ensure that you get fat, tired and bloated this Christmas.This will make him HAPPY!

 

BUT WAIT!!!

 

It doesn't have to be this way!

 

Super Sam (that's me!) has a solution for you!

 

I have come up with 7 ways to avoid the festive flab monster this year so that you can enjoy a healthy happy christmas for you and your loved ones:

 

1) Healthy Eating -

 

 

 

Don't over do it on the carbs. This tends to be extremely common in the winter months when its cold & dark and you have the urge to eat processed carbs.

 

Steer clear of bread, pasta, biscuits, cakes, chocolates and anything with gluten in it. Gluten is very hard to digest and will lead to bloating, water retention and increased fat storeage.

 

Load up on vegetables like broccoli, spinach, white cabbage. water cress. Have EXTRA sprouts with your xmas meals and swap sugary desserts for fresh fruit.

 

2) Family Walks

 

 Get up from the couch and get walking!

 

 

 

 

I love a family walk over the christmas holiday. We always traditionally do a walk on xmas day aswell. Walking is a great way to burn the calories, and an awesome way of enjoying the winter scenery.

 

3) Supplements

 

As the days are shorter and the flu season begins one of the best ways to stay healthy and illness free is through upping your veg intake and taking a good greens drink.

 

The more vegetables we consume, the more alkaline we make our body. It has been research proven that disease, bacteria and parasites cannot thrive in a healthy body. Take a look at the

image below:

 

 

 

4) Get on the Coconut Oil

 

Coconut oil is great for your immune system during these winter months and awesome for carb cravings so cook with it as much as possible. Coconut oil also has the ability to enhance metabolism. It increseases thermogenesis (heat generation) in the body so great for fat burning.

 

5) Stress

 

Grab a couple of early nights to keep Cortisol levels down. If the stress hormone cortisol is always high then you will be more likely be wanting to snack on crap over the christmas period. Getting to bed by 10-30pm (no later) will keep cortisol down.

 

6) Alcohol Alternatives

 

 

 

 

The festive flab monster doesn't want you to know this but when you drink alcohol, you cannot burn bodyfat for 3 days afterwards. Did you know that?

 

Alcohol sadly isn't great if you suffer with love handle fat either so my advice would be to go easy on the alcohol this xmas and go for alcohol alternatives. Fruit cocktails are a healthy and delicious alternative.

 

7) Train 3 times a week!

 

 They don't have to be long, draining sessions. 3 x 30 minute sessions per week should do it. The fitter and healthier you are, the more resistant you will be to colds and infections.

 

Do workouts that increase metabolism. Workouts that help burn calories both during and long AFTER the session finishes. And workouts that add or ATLEAST mantains muscle mass because

muscle tissue is the only tissue in the body that burns fat so why would you not want any?

 

So there you have it!

 

So YES you can STILL have a good time over xmas without completely falling off the diet wagon

 

Follow that 7 step plan to avoid the winter weight gain and steer clear of the festive flab monster because he's on the prowl ;-)

 

Sam